


Dinner for Three

by Saetha



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Modern AU, Nwalin Week, Other, Polyamory, asexual thorin, bigender Nori, tattoo and flowershop au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 07:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6974218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saetha/pseuds/Saetha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dwalin (flowershop owner) and Nori (journalist) are in a happy relationship. Then they meet Thorin (tattoo shop owner) and a new time begins for all of them when they try and work out the ways of a three-way relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner for Three

**Author's Note:**

> Eeeeeyyyyyyy and here is my second contribution to Nwalin Week! It's not strictly JUST Nwalin so I hope you peeps aren't gonna lynch me for this, but yeah, here it is! I'm planning to eventually write more in this 'verse when the mood strikes but we'll see.

“You’re right. He _is_ cute,” Nori remarked as she looked up from behind the ice cream parlour’s menu.

“Told ya.” Dwalin’s grin was wide and rather smug. He was watching unabashedly as Thorin threaded his way through the many tables and chairs on the little plaza that was littered with cafes and restaurants. Thorin was wearing his hair bound back in a messy bun and looked slightly nervous, although he raised his hand and waved a little as soon as he caught sight of Dwalin and Nori. Nori still didn’t lower the menu but raised her hand briefly as well before looking back down at the rather impressive selection of ice cream.

“Stop pretending you’re shy,” Dwalin laughed, softly bumping her shoulder.     

“But I _am_ ,” Nori insisted, although a little smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth. “How do I know you’re not going to run off with him the moment I’m not looking or we’re having an argument?”

“Because I love you.” Dwalin bent over and pressed a kiss into her hair. Nori almost dropped the menu from her hands – she still wasn’t used to Dwalin’s casual declarations of love that always seemed to come when she least expected it. Something inside her always wanted to run away when hearing them.

“If you say so.” Nori couldn’t help but stay slightly sceptical still. A relationship with three people was fine in theory but did it truly work in practise as well?

“This is our first kinda-sorta date,” Dwalin said soothingly. “Who knows. Maybe it’ll turn out that he hates everything ocean-related and thinks green is an ugly colour.”

Nori stared at him.

“I thought you had better taste than that.”             

“I do. That’s why I said _maybe_.” Dwalin chuckled, and even more so as Nori punched him slightly in the ribs. By now Thorin had finally made his way over to their table and now that he was close Nori could truly see how nervous he was. Probably more nervous than herself, she thought with amusement.

“Hey.” Thorin smiled and Nori noted how it makes the intense blue of his eyes stand out even more thanks to the beautiful wrinkles that appeared at the side of his face. She thought about how she had first seen Dwalin smile – that was the moment she had seriously began to crush on him, she realised later. That, and Dwalin’s laugh, so deep and rumbling as if being cuddled in warm blankets.

“Hey.” Nori and Dwalin answered at the same time just to grin again at their synchronicity.

“Thorin, Nori.” Dwalin introduced them to each other and Nori nodded, lifting a hand to give him another quick wave. She’d never really liked shaking stranger’s hands and Thorin seemed fine with it, not in the least miffed. She watched as Thorin sat on the third chair around their little table and immediately picked up the second menu on it, as if he needed something to keep his hands busy with.

“So how was your work today?” Dwalin asked, likely to break the ice.

“Fine,” Thorin smiled. “Only had one customer today who’s getting a bigger piece of work done on his back, so he’s been coming in every few weeks for a while now. Dáin’s doing the rest of the day by himself.”

Nori shuddered a little at the thought to have a tattoo all over her back. It wasn’t so much the image herself that she minded – in fact she loved the way that tattoos looked on other people, especially Dwalin – but the thought of having a needle jab in her skin repeatedly for hours made shivers run down her back. She has always been rather personal about her body and space, especially with strangers.

“Good.” Dwalin nodded and smiled and Nori wondered what kind of impression Thorin was having of him (and, for that matter, of her – at least Thorin had apparently not reacted weirdly when Dwalin had told him that Nori was bigender which was already a big plus in her book. She suspected that she wasn’t the first person like that he had met).

“And you two?” Thorin asked, signalling not-so-subtly that he had no intention of breaking up the couple they were. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Dwalin smiled back. “Flower shop’s going well. We’re always making a big plus around mother’s day, so…”

“I can imagine,” Thorin laughed, before he turned to Nori, obviously determined not to leave her out. “And you? Dwalin told me you’re a journalist?”

Nori nodded.

“Yeah. Not anything big, just local reporting for the moment, but you know…”

“That’s great.” Thorin smiled encouragingly and Nori slowly felt her nervousness dissipate and normal self return.  If he hadn’t seemed so open, she would have wondered if Thorin was hiding something by being so friendly. “Have you decided which ice cream you want to have?”

“Not quite,” Dwalin admitted, leaning over to be able to read the menu in Nori’s hands.

“I know already. _He_ was just too nervous about meeting you again,” Nori grinned, watching with delight as the tips of Thorin’s ears began to turn slightly red. Dwalin glared at her as if she’d just trashed his flowers.

“I _wasn’t_ ,” he insisted. “Was just worried whether you’d find the place or not after you told me how you once got lost in a supermarket of all places.”

Thorin shot a glare back at him - _did you_ really _have to mention this now, Dwalin_ – before pointedly looking down at the menu again.

“I was fine. Only had a little mix-up with the bus on the way here, that’s why I was late.”

“So you _did_ get lost,” Nori stated pragmatically, almost enjoying the way in which Thorin squirmed. Thorin frowned and grumbled something under his breath that could almost be taken as an affirmative statement, but pointedly chose not to answer her.

“Well, that just means that next time we have to meet you at your studio and go from there. To prevent future tragedies,” Dwalin threw in with a little chuckle. Thorin sighed.

“You’re never going to let this go, are you,” he mused.

“Nope, not a snowball’s chance in hell,” Dwalin grinned back and Nori nodded along.

“What a great start,” Thorin commented dryly, but it didn’t seem like he really minded.

From there, their talk moved on to other things, flowing as easily at times as if they had known each other for a long time. Thorin’s laughter seemed to be coming more freely as time went on and they slowly ate their way through some rather large ice cream sundaes. Nori found herself relaxing more and more as time went on as well, especially seeing how completely at ease Dwalin seemed to be.

It turned out that Thorin did not, in fact, hate the ocean and everything in it; and he didn’t really seem to dislike any particular colours either although it was easy to guess that his favourite was still blue. By the end of what could very likely be called a ‘date’, Nori had to admit unwillingly that Thorin was certainly a rather nice person.

“There,” Dwalin grinned. “Told you that you could trust my judgement.”

Nori simply snorted.

“Wouldn’t be so sure about that. Remember how you once insisted that that Hot Dog from a certain street seller was the best thing you’d ever eaten when you were young and insisted we try it again? And how we both spent the rest of the day on the toilet?”

“Hey, that was one mistake!” Dwalin protested with a laugh. “And I sure as hell won’t be making _that_ particular one again.”

“You better.” Nori rolled her eyes and gave his arm a slight squeeze. Dwalin chuckled, but after a moment an air of seriousness came over him again.

“So, what do you think? Did you like him?”

“He was cute,” Nori couldn’t help but reply. “Yeah, I liked him.”

“Good.” Dwalin bent over and they shared another kiss. “So you wouldn’t mind going out with him again?”

“Don’t think so.” Nori shook her head. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that they had promised each other to always be honest even if they were a little afraid of the consequences. “But, uhm. Let’s do this slowly, alright? I’m still not sure how I feel about the thought of sharing you with someone else.”

“Sure.” Dwalin nodded and Nori knew that he meant it honestly. She knew Dwalin inside-out by now; he was the sort to throw himself headfirst into any new thing that came along and if it had been only him, she was fairly sure that he would have tried to woo Thorin and go out with him tomorrow already again. From what she had seen of Thorin she was fairly sure that maybe the latter would have been too fast for Thorin as well.

“Thanks,” Nori smiled back at Dwalin, glad that he was respecting her wishes. But that was one of the things she hadn’t known about him before and then fallen in love with bit by bit – the way he would always try and respect the people in his life, whilst never putting his own desires completely on the backburner. It was something that Nori’d had to learn at first – to strike that brittle balance between giving too much and giving too little, but Dwalin, if anything, had been more than patient with her.

She released a deep breath that she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, hoping it would all turn out alright.

*

“There’s something you need to know.” Thorin looked down at his hands, as if he suddenly didn’t have the courage to face them anymore.

Dwalin frowned as he looked at him and noticed an identical expression on Nori’s face. It wasn’t like Thorin to be this shy about something – at least not based on what Dwalin knew about him already.

“What is it? Out with it,” he prodded Thorin gently, half-expecting some terrible secret to come to light. “Don’t tell me your job as a tattoo artist is only a cover-up and you’re secretly working as assassin for the mafia or something.”

He could hear Nori snort next to him and saw a smile flickering over Thorin’s face in reply. Good. Whatever it was, at least it didn’t keep him from smiling.

“I. Uhm. I’m not quite sure how to say this.” Thorin still wasn’t quite looking them in the eyes and Nori and Dwalin sighed in almost perfect synchronicity.

“Out with it.” Nori told him. “The earlier you tell us whatever it is, the earlier you’ll be done with it.”

“I guess.” Thorin shrugged a little before he took a deep breath, still not looking at them. “The thing is that I…I’m not really into sex. At all. I tried it once even though I felt no desire to ever do it and it was sort of…really disappointing and unpleasant and kinda disgusting. So. Uhm.”

“That’s it?” Dwalin gaped at him. “And for that you were looking like you either wanted the earth itself to swallow you whole or thought the MI5 was about to gun you down?”

“Well, sex is such a big thing in the gay community and so I thought…”

“But did you seriously think that we’d, I don’t know, _hate_ you for that? Or didn’t want to see you anymore?” This time it was Nori who cut in and Dwalin nodded along.

“If that’s what it was then I’m kinda hurt now that you’d trust as so little,” he added.

He hadn’t thought it possible but Thorin looked even more embarrassed than a few moments ago. Dwalin groaned.

“C’mon, it’s nothing. Like, you’re pretty hot and all but I didn’t ask you on that first date just because you have a pretty ass. I mean it IS pretty but-“ Dwalin caught himself when he realised that he probably wasn’t exactly helping right now. “Okay, baseline is, it changes nothing for me, no matter what you might think.”

“Neither for me.” Nori confirmed next to him.

“Really?” Thorin looked up and Dwalin could see the disbelief in his eyes, making him guess that he’d probably experienced quite different reactions to this revelation before. He made a mental note to ask Thorin after it at some point, maybe once Thorin was more relaxed. Part of him wanted to do nothing but punch the people in the face who were responsible for that look of disbelief in his eyes. But then, he knew it was hardly necessary – Thorin could defend himself well enough on his own and Dwalin fervently hoped that he had in that case.

“Yeah, sure.” Dwalin hesitated for a moment. “And kissing?”

He rather hoped that the question wasn’t too intimate, but at the same time he was curious.

“Fine, I guess?” Thorin shrugged lightly. “Cuddling, too.” He rather looked like he preferred not to be talking about it much anymore – for some reason he still seemed embarrassed, and Dwalin thought to himself that it would probably simply be best to give him some time. Next to him Nori nodded, obviously having the same thoughts.

“Soooo, after that’s over and done with no, you mentioned something about getting an apprentice in your studio soon? How’s that going?”

Thorin gave Nori a small, grateful smile at the question and Dwalin felt pride welling up inside him. He had been infinitely nervous about how Thorin and Nori would get along. It wasn’t every day that you developed a crush on someone whilst knowing that you were still as deeply in love with your current partner as ever. It had confused him at first before his mind had simply accepted the facts. There was no way he would ever let Nori go – he was far too much in love and it was a love that kept evolving and revealing new and brilliant things at every turn still. Dwalin was quite sure that he wanted to spend a long time with Nori yet. If Thorin had expressed any objections against that Dwalin would never even have thought of asking him out, no matter how alluring he might have found him. Nori was far too important for that.

Dwalin had been nervous about asking Nori even though he knew that his partner was rather liberal the vast majority of the time. Still, asking someone whether they’d maybe mind a third person joining the relationship wasn’t exactly the easiest of all questions, especially since that might mean another bout of change in their lives. As quickly as Nori seemed to be in adapting to new situations, Dwalin knew that things which were steady and stable were something that Nori cherished – maybe because those things seemed to have been so rare in Nori’s life before Dwalin stepped into it. It hadn’t been so long ago that Nori had told him just how terrifying the thought was that things might one day not be as they were now between them.

“I’m like a barnacle.” Nori had said quietly. “It takes me quite some time to get attached to something but once I am I find it really hard to let go.”

Dwalin had chuckled, running Nori’s hair through his fingers.

“Good thing I’m a rock then. Not very easy to dislodge me.”

Instead of replying Nori had simply kissed him and in that kiss Dwalin felt all that they weren’t able to put into words so easily. There was trust in there, running deep as the rivers below the earth, and love as well as the quiet promise to try and hold on as long as life would let them.

Now that Dwalin watched Nori and Thorin in a quiet conversation with each other he wondered just which twisted paths this life would surprise him with.

*

“Yes. Dwalin, _yes_. _Dwalin_ -” Nori gasped.

From the sounds of it Nori was about to see some big secret of the universe and Thorin just shook his head. On an instinctive level he had known that Dwalin and Nori were of course going to have sex in their bedroom. It was very clearly a firm part of their relationship (Dwalin would have made a very bad joke about the words ‘ _firm part_ ’ now but Thorin wasn’t ready to have his partner’s taste for horrendously bad puns invade his mind. Not yet.) and neither of them made a secret about the fact they liked it quite rough at times. Of course Thorin had told them that he didn’t mind all this when he had first moved in (nor was he entirely sure he would have told them had he minded – he still thought that at some point sooner or later Dwalin or Nori would kick him out again when they realised he wasn’t exactly great fun to be around) and held with that ever since. Today though – enough was enough. He _had_ to have the accounts for his tattooing business finished by tomorrow morning and this was simply too loud.

With a little sigh he got up from the chair at the kitchen table that he was working at and slammed his fist against the bedroom door of his two partners in one of the rare breaks were neither of them were moaning their souls out.

“Oy, folks, can you be a bit more quiet?” he shouted in what he hoped wasn’t a too angry sounding tone. “Some people have _work_ to do!”

There was silence behind the door before a ‘Sorry!’ from both Dwalin and Nori came through.

“Thanks!” Thorin shouted and went back to his desk and laptop where his accounts were staring at him accusingly.

Five minutes later they started again. Thorin hadn’t thought it possible but somehow they were even _louder_ than before. If he didn’t know better he’d think they were _killing_ each other in there or something. Thorin was fairly sure he didn’t want to imagine what they were doing even though his mind unhelpfully tried to supply him with rather detailed pictures anyway. He felt reluctant to go and say something again, however; of course he knew that they weren’t doing it out of malice.

With a sigh he settled back down and tried to concentrate on work. If he could at least get some earplugs from somewhere…but of course they were in the bedroom that was currently otherwise occupied. He groaned.

Thirty minutes later (the yelling had subsided a while earlier already) Dwalin and Nori both strutted out of their bedroom, still looking slightly dishevelled and with a healthy flush all over their faces. Nori settled down next to Thorin, leaning in close and putting his head on Thorin’s shoulder.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he said although there was no mistaking the twinkle in his eyes. “Sometimes things just have to…happen. Did you manage to get some work done at least?”

Thorin just groaned slightly. This was something he had never been able to understand – how being sexually attracted to someone could apparently override every other existing brain function.

“Well, I’m glad you two had fun. I, for one, am still stuck with those damn accounts and no thanks to your help…” he muttered, although it was hard to stay angry with Dwalin and Nori for long.

“There.” Dwalin put down three mugs on the table, each one filled with fresh hot chocolate before pressing a quick kiss into Thorin’s hair as he plopped down on the chair on Thorin’s other side. “Hope that helps. Sorry again.”

“One day I’ll just make you bake giant apology cakes that say ‘sorry for the loud sex’,” Thorin grumbled as he took a sip of the hot chocolate, but there was no hiding the smile on his face. He truly wasn’t angry anymore.

“That is actually an excellent idea.” Nori grinned. “Dwalin, take note.”

“Already done.” Dwalin tapped a finger on his temple. They grinned at each other and high-fived behind Thorin’s back. Thorin swallowed a laugh although he was only half successful at it.

“You two are impossible. Why did I move in here again?”

“Because you love us.” Nori smirked.

“Yep.” Dwalin smirked as well and, as if they had counted it out together, they both kissed Thorin on the cheek. He simply laughed.

“Impossible,” he repeated.


End file.
